WFU to Celebrate Year of the Arts for 1996-97

All the campus will be a stage and the spotlight will be on musicians, dancers, artists and actors as Wake Forest University begins a year-long celebration of the arts in September. The Year of the Arts, running through May 1997, will include dozens of special events to highlight the importance of the arts.

“The aim of the year is to encourage participation in and support for the university’s arts programs,” says James Dodding, Wake Forest theater professor and primary organizer of the Year of the Arts. Dodding also hopes to call attention to the value of the arts in society.

Opera legend Beverly Sills will open the year with an address Sept. 24. Four days later, Wake Forest will host the Sept. 28 world premiere of “Since Dawn (A Tone Poem for Narrator, Chorus, and Orchestra based on Maya Angelou’s ‘On the Pulse of Morning’).”

Created by Wake Forest’s composer-in-residence Dan Locklair, “Since Dawn” will be performed by the Winston-Salem Piedmont Triad Symphony with Angelou as narrator.

Other key events will include a special art exhibit, “Works From Alumni Collections: Color Function Painting and William Hogarth Prints,” to be shown in the Wake Forest University Fine Arts Gallery from August through October.

During the spring semester, a printmaking workshop will bring North American printmakers to campus throughout the year to teach and produce print suites that will be available to collectors.

On March 1-2, 1997, Wake Forest will host “Joy’s Legacy: Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,” a Beethoven festival that will include a performance of the composer’s ninth symphony. A scholarly symposium and faculty/student recital will be part of the festival. Wake Forest music professor David Levy, who organized the festival, recently published the book “Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony.”

A two-day symposium, entitled “The Arts in the New Century,” is scheduled for March 21-22, 1997. Art critics, artists, historians and scholars will discuss the role of the arts in society–in education, the media and health.

The Wake Forest theater department, with the help of playwright Romulus Linney, will host a Festival of New Plays in February 1997 to showcase plays written by Wake Forest students, alumni and faculty.

Numerous other faculty and student-sponsored events are planned for the Year of the Arts. The Year of the Arts marks the start of the university’s plans to develop each year a series of events, including a major symposium, around a common theme. Arising from the university’s Plan for the Class of 2000, each year’s series is intended to become the centerpiece of intellectual and social life on the campus. Sponsorship by The Coca-Cola Foundation has enabled the university to add events to the year’s focus on the arts.

The Year of the Arts is dedicated to the memory of the late James Ralph Scales, Wake Forest president from 1967-1983. Many of the year’s events will take place in Wake Forest’s Scales Fine Arts Center.

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